pozhalovat’. Vashe…vashe velichestvo…”
I stop. The tsar stares. At that instant a Muscovite tosses a plum at me. The hall awakes from its torpor. Merriment spreads, and I stare at these dastardly wretches who have already made the vomit basins foam. The Muscovite is on his feet, and he keeps on throwing things at me. The flesh of one plum has landed on my left cheek and another on my right shoulder. At first I don’t know what to do. The plums hurt. I jump down from the church roof and land on top of a regiment of marzipan soldiers. Soldiers, sleighs, and snowdrifts are crushed beneath my dwarf feet, squishing like cakes between my toes.
Silence falls over the hall.
Again.
Everyone turns to the tsar to see how he’ll react. The tsar regards me with an inscrutable expression—an expression that no one can decipher.
Then I begin to dance. I stick my wrinkled buttocks in the air, as if they were silken cushions. I take a few fancy dance steps, back and forth, just like the fine folk do. Callenberg is giving the king a desperate look, but Frederik is just as difficult to read as the tsar. I keep on with my frivolous dance, spreading my legs, twirling around like a top, as I sing a bawdy drinking song.
Now a footman comes storming toward me. I jump down from the cake and run between the tables. Many of the guests start to cheer; others jump up onto their chairs to avoid the naked dwarf. I crawl my way past the knee-high stockings and the corsets, as fast as my crooked legs will carry me.
Three fierce footmen chase after me. I evade them by slipping between the legs of several countesses and crawl out on the other side of the table. But as I’m about to get to my feet, I’m picked up by unknown hands.
I kick and I bite. At that moment I discover that I’m looking into the eyes of the tsar of the Muscovites. For an instant my heart stands still, because Peter’s eyes are the most peculiar eyes that I’ve ever seen. They are dark holes, compelling and inquiring, but not alarming. On the contrary. Everything can be seen in those eyes. Everything.
Peter holds me away from his face and stares at me, as if trying to read all my secrets. Then he tilts his head back and he laughs. The laughter makes his whole body shake—his narrow shoulders and his chest. To my astonishment, I discover that he has tears in his eyes.
“You are the most hideous dwarf I have ever seen,” he says in German.
I blush. And then the tsar kisses me on the lips. After that he hands me to another Muscovite, who kisses me in the same fashion. I look down at my body, at the boils and the big scars, and I clench my teeth.
It’s all over.
Some distance away I see the master of ceremonies approaching like a wolf, but Peter waves him off. Then he reaches for me again and swings me back and forth, as if I were his firstborn child. And as if by magic, the musicians strike up a merry tune, and the footmen begin cutting into the huge cake.
“You are very naughty,” the tsar says to me.
I nod sheepishly. I like the tsar’s eyes. I like the way he smells of tar and salt water. The tsar is a man, and wenches like men.
At that moment a cannonade is heard from the castle courtyard.
The tsar continues to talk to me, this time in Russian. Then he tosses me up toward the ceiling and hands me to another Muscovite, who laughs just as raucously.
And in that manner I make my way around the table. People kiss me and stick their hands between my legs and pour aquavit down my throat from enormous goblets. For a long time I’m the focus of the entire hall.
When I’m no longer a novelty, the hands of footmen carry me out. I’m dizzy from the liquor. The only thing I want to do is throw up. We pass several paintings resplendent with opulent baskets of fruit. I shut my eyes as I sail past Flemish pears and heavy gilt frames.
At one point everything goes black, and I fall sound asleep in my own vomit. I have no idea where I am.
9.
WHEN YOU’RE A DWARF, THE WORLD IS IMMEASURABLY vast. It’s like some cruel folktale, or a garbage dump for freewheeling fantasies. The furniture is as tall as towering beacons, the doors are portals into gigantic spaces. Even a carpet is a sea that goes on forever. Maybe that’s why people think that dwarves have the same view of the world as children, that we’re endowed with the chaste minds of children, that we thrive on tomfoolery. But nothing could be further from the truth. Whereas children see the world as a long string of nonsensical events, midgets see it as a Coronation Charter, as a declaration of war from a sadistic Creator who spends His time devising new humiliations.
I was sold to a baron in North Jutland on my twelfth birthday.
I don’t know how much money my father received, but I assume that he consulted Our Lord before setting the price. There was nothing dramatic about it. I left my childhood home in a wagon and was driven to Jutland along with chests of drawers, garden furniture, and a couple of old spinning wheels. After that I lived for five years at Count Rosenskjold’s manor, where I worked as a servant and a taster. I became familiar with excellent wines and the exquisite art of portraiture from Venice—with everything in the world of the nobility. And I was allowed to spend time in the library when no one else was making use of it. I continued my reading of the Bible, I studied German, Latin, and French. I learned as much as I could, because I knew that my mind would be my only salvation in a world that tramples small creatures like thistles.
It was actually the intention of my lord that I should function as a court jester, but he quickly discovered that I was too testy and not the least bit amusing. I didn’t smile as often as he liked. I frightened the children and the guests. I wasn’t housebroken enough to be among all those people of refinement. At most I could be allowed to crawl across the chairs and pour wine for those who had newly arrived. But they soon tired of me after I’d spilled the wine enough times.
In actuality, my lord didn’t have need for a court jester; he performed that role himself. He spent all his time putting on airs and expanding his manor in one way or another, seeking to make it a center for folk of quality. He created an orangerie for rare plants, he built a hall of mirrors in the French style, he hired an Italian composer who filled the halls with miserable caterwauling. The refined arts may have come to Jutland, but outdoors it still stank of cow dung.
That’s one of the things I don’t understand about humans: their need to put on airs. Do they really believe that their identity lies in a fancy garden? Does a person become more powerful in the eyes of others if he imports highbrow culture from principalities whose names he can’t even pronounce? That sort of extravagance displays a hollowness of the soul, a depressing emptiness. And that emptiness was quite obvious in my lord. Count Rosenskjold had only one wish: that the king would stay at his estate during one of his visits to Jutland. He lived for the day when His Majesty would arrive with his entourage, when he would dine at the sycamore table in the green hall. But the king never came. He chose to stay in Boller, at Skanderborg Castle, and never with my lord. A sensible person would have accepted this with peace in his soul, but fine folk are seldom sensible.
When pietism won a foothold in Denmark, my lord had something new to which he could devote himself. He began holding prayer meetings in the chapel, which had been decorated by a Flemish artist.
Because I was so well-read, I was allowed to participate.
It
